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Topic: Blaspheming the Holy Ghost (Read 1881 times)

stech1

I've been reading the Gospel of Matthew lately. When I got to the 12th chapter, I come across the warning of Jesus regarding blaspheming the Holy Ghost. I've always found this scripture to be ambiguous, and it has always concerned me greatly because of the seriousness of the matter. Here is the actual passage:

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Mat 12:31-32 Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. (32) And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

So, my question is: what is this blasphemy? Also, how does this unpardonable sin relate to Universalism?

Thank you for the answers! I am new here and I am very sorry if this has been covered before. I did do a search on the word blasphemy but didn't find any post dealing with this scripture.

We've discussed this here some time ago and you will find some more links that could help you there as well.

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It is much more possible for the sun to give out darkness than for God to do or be, or give out anything but Blessing and Goodness.- William Law

Man can certainly flee from God... but he cannot escape him. He can certainly hate God and be hateful to God, but he cannot change into its opposite the eternal love of God which triumphs even in his hate. --Karl Barth

It is much more possible for the sun to give out darkness than for God to do or be, or give out anything but Blessing and Goodness.- William Law

Man can certainly flee from God... but he cannot escape him. He can certainly hate God and be hateful to God, but he cannot change into its opposite the eternal love of God which triumphs even in his hate. --Karl Barth

stech1

Thank you AbbasChild for th response and links. I was sure that it had been discussed here before, but my cursory search did not turn up anything. I will go and check out the articles you posted right now. Thanks again!

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martincisneros

Thank you, Florian, for posting those links to this thread. There's also a thread on this in the Guestbook at these boards at this link http://www.tentmaker.org/forum/index.php?topic=2212.0 Not sure if you'll find it helpful, but it's a thread that comes to mind on this particular topic.

joyful1

Hi Stech 1!I'm new here too and have had some problems finding the old links. However, I feel compelled to post something here about your question.

You asked about Matthew 12:31-32 31Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

32And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

Compare that verse with

Mark 3:22 and verses 28-30

22 And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils. ...

28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:

29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.

30 Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.

Jesus had NO UNCLEAN spirit, for heaven's sake! He was fathered by the HOLY SPIRIT! Jesus had told the disciples back in Chapter 10 that:

Matthew 10:25It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? (*Jesus seems to be warning the disciples to expect this VERY subject to come up by naming the devil.)

If Jesus were casting out demons through the power of evil spirits ....then THAT made Jesus nothing more than a liar and potentially fathered by a demon spirit; a nephilim, no less!Here's a post from a new age site promoting this very thing.

(*PLEASE NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS FROM THE ABOVE MENTIONED NEW AGE SITE)I have been thinking lately about the status of Jesus and it seems the thought has crossed the minds of others, also. My question is whether Jesus was human or more than human. Obviously, he was not an angel and not a mere man. The conclusion I have come to is that he was a nephilim, a product of a "daugther of man" and "son of God". He had the power of an angel but the free will of a man and undoubtedly had more power than any mere mortal. This makes me wonder whether, when interpreting older texts, we should take into consideration the provincialness of those writing the texts.

I'd best contain myself now before I launch into a book on this subject! Its so fresh in my mind right now, however, having just finished an intense study of the subject, that I couldn't help putting this down in answer to your question.Please forgive the length!Sincerely with love and hope,Joyce

martincisneros

Martin, I keep getting the following message when I try to use the links to other threads listed here:

"The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you. "

I believe I've activated my account correctly, simply because I was ebanbled to enter these discusions once I did. Is there something I neglected or is this a glitch?

Thanks!Mary Ellen

I am so sorry that it took me this long to see this post of yours. I don't know if I saw it previously and it didn't "click" for some reason, or what happened. This one somehow slipped past the radar where not only I didn't see it, but apparently it slipped past the moderators as well. Ordinarily I should have at least heard of this post, even if someone didn't know what to tell you. What probably happened was that someone probably clicked the link and it worked for them and they didn't think another thing about it. The link might just not be working for you because of a rule of posting on that board by members that you'll notice if you see the board while you're not logged in. That setting was established on that board before they made me administrator and I'm not yet sure of how to mess with those kinds of settings or how to grant an individual permission. It's one of those having to have a certain number of posts rule to be able to post in answer to questions on that board. But I was not aware, when I posted the link, of a problem with simply viewing the link if you were a member. Tell ya what: to simplify things, because it's "my call," I'll move the thread in question over to the "Discussions on Universal Salvation" board that is still visible to the general public. The public can start threads on the Guest Book, but they can't reply to threads that are started on the Guest Book any way, so I'm doing no one any ill by doing that. I'm not sure if that'll change the address on the link, but if it does I'll post the new link in my above post where I'd originally posted the link.

autoimmune

Hi, Martin, I found the new thread and posted my 2 cents there. Thanks!

Sorry I haven't been around for a while, but I've had a lot of family things that absorbed most of my energy lately. I think it was God's way of getting me to back off forums for a while. I was beginning to tire of theological debates everywhere I went. To be honest, I came here to find fellowship with like-minded people and ended up debating scripture anyway :)

Not complaining; it's my problem, not anyone else's. Just goes to show ya, though, that I doubt any two people interpret scripture exactly the same way.

ME

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martincisneros

I didn't find your comment on that thread. Hopefully, I just looked at the wrong thread and that we don't have a system bug again. Joyful1 said something the other day about having thought that she posted something only to find out later that her comment never went through. Usually when you've successfully posted something you'll get redirected to the same board. But a "page not found," "can't be displayed," or getting logged out can make whether or not you posted kinda suspect.

I know what you mean about trying not to get into the whole debate scene. So often that gets started over semantics. A misunderstanding of terms or a pet peeve term, that if they just hadn't said it quite that way, then everything would have been fine, etc., etc. I know quite a few people that way, that'll pick a fight or have a correcting attitude because someone used what they considered a religiously traditional "term" that's not a Biblical term for saying something. But there was [genuine] reason to believe that they were on the [exact] same page sans the semantical faux pas. Yet they made an issue out of it anyway. I just want to choke people sometimes when they do that, but the minute I get too high up on my horse I'll probably accidentally do the same thing with trying to take someone's head off over something even less just because I'd previously had an attitude about something else or whatever. So, I try not to give people too hard of a time whenever I see that 'cause unless they're the idiot that I'd never previously considered them to be, then in all probability they're just venting over something else. They don't feel like they can cuss about their paycheck or the price of gasoline without sounding like they've got a lack of faith in their own eyes, but they can sure deal with that emotion at everybody else's expense! A lot of times when someone gets all up in your threads on a discussion board and it feels like it's virtually just semantical, they're usually just dealing with pressures in other areas of their lives. Or they're bored, so why not? LOL!

If you feel a fuss coming on either from yourself or someone else that's really not getting you, you're always free to ignore that particular thread for a couple of days or for a week until you feel like you can hear whatever and not take it personally. If I'm personally going through too much, I'll leave a thread completely alone until I'm ready to deal with whatever I'm feeling isn't going to be the answer that I was wanting to hear. And usually I'm pleasantly surprised if I'll back away for a couple of days. And when I think that I am soooo on the same page with someone else, that's usually when I'm rudely awakened. You just never know what's behind a username online, or what's going on with people in general even if you've met someone both offline and online. You've just got to focus on doing what's right for you so that none of the online stuff is ever personal. Some of the people that get into online bullying get into it because it's easier for them than for some people to dissociate that they're talking to an actual person. Or because it feels good. Or because they're not consciously thinking of consequences for either themselves or who they're actually picking on more than they realize with their attitude and internet jostling and banter.

It all comes down to staying careful about your perspective about who is really in your life and who is just an internet worm and/or virus. Just focus on what matters and the people that really matter when it comes to who God's knit you to. God's not the author of confusion.

The discussion board scene's not really all of that natural or comfortable for me. I got asked about being administrator around here right when I was going to take a really long break from any time whatsoever on the internet. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit for me to help out here as an act of service to the Lord and to a ministry that I've not been able to be as much of a contributer to over the last 4 or 5 years as I've wanted to be and was feeling really sorry that I'd been taking more than I'd been giving back. But it's less of a paying a debt of conscience and more about sowing my time for stuff that the Lord and I have an understanding about. Our labors in the Lord, when they're guided by the Holy Spirit, are never in vain.

I think I had a dream this past Sunday morning. I think. Whether in my body or out of my body, I honestly couldn't tell you. But Jesus and I went for a walk around town and talked about a few things and He laid His hands on me concerning some things that were going on in my body that I'd been claiming His redemptive work in. And I'll never be the same again after that. I can't get very far into the details 'cause I've rambled a lot in this post already. I've genuinely been feeling all day today like one of the things that lead up to that Visitation, dream, vision, combination of all of the above or whatever is because with spending a little extra time here in addition to the rest of my personal schedule, it was just that much easier to keep my mind stayed on Him. And He keeps in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on Him. And that really extended, long-play dream really bumped up my peace to a whole new level. I'd really felt for nearly 19 years as though He had a really special calling on my life, but compared to what I've been through in that time period, there was a disproportionate absense of what I'd felt should have been even a minimum of validation from Him along those lines. And I really got what I'd been needing -- what nobody else could have come close to giving me -- this past Sunday morning.

I had to learn a long time ago and to relearn it from time to time that whenever someone has a different interpretation on a particular Scripture from my interpretation, it doesn't mean that they're blaspheming the Holy Spirit. So, I can sorta relax a bit. And I guess that Jabcat was right in calling me a preacherman the other day 'cause it would take one to get a post like mine back on track with the title of this thread like I just did

martincisneros

Hi Martin!What happened? I'd like to hear, and I bet others would too...if you can share?Joyce :)

It was in some place between out of body experience and a dream. The conversation was mostly concerning things related to my calling. It's hard to get very detailed without either attracting some heat or sounding like I'm being boastful about some things. The biggest thing to me was about Him laying His Hands on me with regards to some health concerns that I kept firing Scriptures at, like 1Peter 2:24, Romans 8:11, Matthew 8:17, and others over the last few months. I had a parachuting incident last September that I think that my body was still having some post traumatic stress over. I didn't get scared. Just something unplanned came up, and my body had been doing weird stuff ever since that seemed mostly psychosomatic.

The odd timing of that spiritual experience having been in the immediate hours that followed my having opened a new account for some discussion boards that I was going to set up has had me picking each part of the memory for relevant details, though not much was said directly about it that I remember. I have the strongest sensation and occasional flashes that seem to indicate that it happened over several hours, although I've blanked out of my conscious mind all but maybe an hour and a half to two hours of it. It was really intense and it got me out of one of those "maybe there isn't a God" that I'd been in for a couple of days previous to that of just some stupid spiritual warfare on my mind that I was just mostly ignoring rather than actively engaging in any type of spiritual warfare against it. It wasn't getting into my emotions, anything that I'd say or type, or anything like that. Just some stupid thoughts that kept on and on coming.

If I remember anything else that doesn't feel like TMI details that'll get anybody thinking that I think that I'm this or that, then I'll definitely share more as I have liberty to. The Lord brought up something that He'd initiated through me of a personal nature last fall, and things sorta got messed up last December with regards to that personal matter. He assured me that in that situation that the "pause button" had simply been pressed and not the eject/reject button on something that I really wish I could get into, but it really wouldn't be appropriate to say anything about at this point. All of the language of the time of visitation with the Lord was basically the restoration of a whole bunch of stuff in my life and the validation of other things that had been on my heart that He was letting me know were from Him that I was teetering on giving up entirely on and having myself locked up in the looney bin for good 'cause it was such huge stuff. I was to the point of thinking that I was just being bull headed about some stuff that would never be, and He assured me that everything would be exactly as He'd led me to call it along each of those particular lines that He spoke to and through me about. He affirmed that I had been in a season of prophecy last fall, and that I was speaking His Word and not my own about something soooo amazing that I absolutely promise that I'll share more when there's something to actually share of details rather than just impositional faith, hope, love, and Words from Him that are a bit subjective until I can pass along proofs that nothing was presumption and flesh on my part.

For context, and lest you, or anyone else, think anything of me, or that I'm in any way thinking anything is of value in my flesh or anything stupid like that, my year 2006 was total Hell -- Sheol, Gehenna, Tartarus, et. al. Culminating in the loss of my wife December 8th of 2006 to an illness. So, I went into 2007 completely destroyed and so I outfasted and outprayed anyone in the Bible. I prayed more last year than I had in the previous 17 years combined. And I've always maintained a Spirit-filled life since about July/August of 1991. So, I went into last summer extremely strange or whatever. And, uh..., there wound up being a brief season where I started saying a few things about just a handful of things that it would be in a certain way and that nothing else would be accepted. Wasn't sure for months this year if I'd temporarily snapped or what. But, on the morning of this past July 6th, if that was a Sunday, I wound up having the above trippy experience. I usually totally blow off religious hallucinations after a few days out of trying to be rational about a certain percentage of it that I'm seldom reading anything but the Bible any more, so I usually just figure after a few hours that a lot of it's just the subconscious acting up or whatever. I can't quite blow off the experience from the first Sunday of this month though. Too powerful. Too in my face. I woke up feeling way too good and the room was filled to the breaking point with the Presence of God. I was teetering on shouting praises most of the day and I'm ordinarily a fairly quiet person.

« Last Edit: July 15, 2008, 03:11:34 AM by martincisneros »

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joyful1

I'm very sorry for your loss, Martin. I hope that you are finding peace in the issues that you've mentioned. And I hope to hear more of your experiences, as you feel led to share.Again...I'm so sorry about your wife.Sincerely,Joyce